Cyclopean architecture, using offcuts

[Philip Davies]

This is a game. I am using up some offcuts, especially some hardwoods: I cannot think of much else to do with them, so I am making sets for Christmas presents. I was relieved to see that I could build a wall with an entrance, without assistance! It’s not meant to be a competitive game, but cooperative, since it is not easy to put it together, so I think children would find it too frustrating.

I played with blocks a lot when I was a little lad. I found also that in very old age, my mother and other residents in her care home, enjoyed playing with Duplo, the larger version of Lego.

Before I met my wife, I read that a good test of character is to start building a tower of playing cards, to see what your prospective partner will do. Will he/she help you? Or will they knock it over? I am sure you can guess what my wife did.

It has been intriguing to speculate how the ancients shaped monumental masonry, especially the really close fitting walls in South America ( although similar architecture is found around the globe). The most plausible theory is that the Incas used highly acidic mine water, which, combined with bitumen and organic material, possibly using fire also, converted the mating surfaces of the igneous rocks to kaolin. And I suppose if they were banging them about with mauls, the vibration would assist the process. There’s a lot of crazy speculation though.

[mklotz]

If you wish to make something entertaining with blocks of wood consider making a Soma cube...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma_cube

A more ambitious game using blocks of wood is the game of Cathedral...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_(board_game)

Fun for city planners everywhere.

I've been told that some of those tightly fitted Inca stones are only tight at the edges; much of the block has been made concave so it sits only on the edges where it touches the stones supporting it. This is similar to the technique of relieving the center of the base of a bowl so it will not rock when set on a flat surface. Much easier to get tight fits that way.

As long as I'm undermining the achievements of the ancients, let's take a shot at the pyramids. A noted civil engineer has raised the controversial conjecture that the interior of the pyramids is not made of endless blocks of stone but rather is a stone casing filled with rubble.

He bases this conjecture that, by his estimates, if the pyramid consisted of blocks as thought, there should be a pile of rubble as big as the pyramid left from forming the blocks used in the pyramid. Since there is no evidence of such a pile on the Giza plateau or the surrounding region, his logical conclusion is that it was used as fill.

I'm not ready to believe him (I don't "believe" anything) but I do find the Egyptian antiquities commission's reluctance to examine the memorials in depth very suspect. Their foot-dragging over the suspected additional chambers in Tutankhamen's tomb is equally puzzling.

[Philip Davies]

Thanks for your observations, Marv.

I can appreciate that an engineer might relish the challenge of producing 27 identical cubes: it probably would not take you long. I have never used a milling machine and wonder what material you would use? I could only accomplish this with the use of 2 jigs, Although frequently called upon to produce identical components, it’s rather tedious, and much prefer to do one-offs.

That is right about only the visible edges’ alignment of the South American blocks. But no rubble infill has been found from the destructive intrusions into the Great Pyramid. The recently discovered void appears to be, apparently, an inclined relieving chamber above the Grand Gallery, I understand, so any excavation is not likely to reveal much, compared to the risk and expense.

[mklotz]

Thanks for your observations, Marv.

I can appreciate that an engineer might relish the challenge of producing 27 identical cubes: it probably would not take you long. I have never used a milling machine and wonder what material you would use? I could only accomplish this with the use of 2 jigs, Although frequently called upon to produce identical components, it’s rather tedious, and much prefer to do one-offs.

Actually, there's no need to produce 27 unit cubes; you only need to make three.

Pieces 1 through 4 (as shown in the referenced URL) are planar and could be cut from a flat plate of stock. The bodies of pieces 5 through 7 could also be so cut and a single cube glued on to create the three dimensional form.

[bruce.desertrat]

I guess I am truly a child of the 60's...first thing that came to mind when I saw Philip's photos was "Flintstones, meet the Flintstones..." :-)